The Metabolic Approach to Cancer: Trauma, Terrain, Mitochondria & Integrative Oncology with Dr. Nasha Winters | E188

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What if cancer is not simply an isolated enemy to attack, but also a signal to look more closely at the terrain in which disease developed?
In this powerful episode of Made for Health, Dr. Aaron Hartman sits down with Dr. Nasha Winters, ND, FABNO, L.Ac, Dipl.OM, a naturopathic doctor and Fellow of the American Board of Naturopathic Oncology whose work focuses on metabolic and integrative oncology.
Dr. Winters’ interest in cancer is deeply personal. At just 19 years old, after years of unexplained health problems, she was diagnosed with advanced ovarian cancer involving multiple areas of her body and was told she may have only months to live. That experience ultimately redirected her education, clinical career, and understanding of health. Pasted text(20261018-195841)
More than three decades later, she shares how that diagnosis changed the way she thinks about cancer, trauma, metabolism, environmental exposures, mitochondria, hormones, and the relationship between a person's biography and biology.
Key Topics Covered
Dr. Nasha Winters’ stage IV ovarian cancer diagnosis at age 19
Why her early symptoms were repeatedly attributed to existing diagnoses
What changed when one physician recognized that something was different
Her prognosis and the moment she decided she wanted to understand cancer rather than simply “fight” it
The unexpected experiences she believes influenced her early survival
Fasting and metabolic stress in cancer
Childhood trauma and the Adverse Childhood Experiences, or ACE, framework
Big-T and little-T trauma
EMDR and trauma processing
Psychedelic experiences and confronting mortality
Psychoneuroimmunology
The relationship between emotions, stress, nervous-system signaling, and physical health
Cancer as a disease of the individual “terrain”
Environmental exposures and the exposome
Mitochondrial health
Metabolic dysfunction and cancer
Insulin and growth signaling
Hormone metabolism
Integrative approaches to prostate cancer
Integrative considerations in breast cancer
Colon cancer and the rising burden of cancer in younger adults
Why Dr. Winters believes patients should understand their individual terrain
How integrative oncology can work alongside conventional cancer care
Why patients may have more influence over their health than they realize
In This Episode, You Will Learn
✅ How Dr. Winters went from a 19-year-old pre-med student with advanced cancer to spending decades studying integrative and metabolic oncology
✅ Why finally having someone believe that “something is different” was an important moment in her diagnosis
✅ How childhood experiences and unresolved trauma became part of the way she understood her own illness
✅ Why she considers metabolic health, immune function, nervous-system regulation, environmental exposures, and emotional health together rather than viewing cancer through one pathway
✅ What she means when she talks about a person's “terrain”
✅ Why Dr. Winters evaluates factors such as insulin signaling, hormone metabolism, environmental burden, inflammation, and mitochondrial function
✅ How she approaches different cancer types through an individualized lens rather than assuming every person with the same diagnosis has the same underlying terrain
✅ Why she believes conventional oncology and integrative oncology do not need to exist in opposition
✅ How patients can begin learning about their own health patterns even before facing a cancer diagnosis
Resources & Links:
🌐 Dr. Aaron Hartman – Richmond Functional Medicine: richmondfunctionalmedicine.com
🌐 LinkedIn – Dr. Aaron Hartman: Connect Here
📺 YouTube – Richmond Functional Medicine: Watch Here
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